Oct 27, 2026 · 31 min · 16 segments
Welcome to What's Up Docs?, the podcast where doctors and identical twins Chris and Xand van Tulleken explore the ideas shaping our health and wellbeing. In this episode, they turn their attention to…
Marc AndersenGuest
Chris van TullekenHostXand van TullekenHost
Mathias ClasenGuestOne of the things that really struck me was what Matthias said about the lack of seriousness that these kinds of entertainments have been treated with over the years.
Almost like they've had a very negative association when he talked about, since Victorian times, we've said these things are sort of corrupting and should be regarded as bad.
He really made me think it's good to consider this and embrace it and think about it as... not just potentially useful in our own lives, but also as a serious area of research that we have a huge amount to learn from.
Play with your demons, practice with your real-life demons by engaging with horror.
The nuance here that I thought Mark and Matthias were incredibly clear about, but is easily lost, is that saying that horror is good for you does not mean you should impose that on other people.
The point about it is when people are engaging with this stuff in a way that they are in control, they can turn up the dial or turn down the dial.
And when they are in control of their own journey through it, that's where the benefit lies.
Matthias used the phrase sweet fear and that sort of lovely, delicious kind of fear.
The difference between that and real fear is the control, is that you are exploring it deliberately yourself, that you are able to turn the volume down, turn away, turn the telly off, whatever the thing might be, exit the house of horrors.
Well, Mark and Matthias kindly lurked around in the shadows on the line for Doctor's Notes.
And in that episode, we are going to delve into how they met and how they got interested in the whole area of recreational fear.
And we also delve deeper into the different types of horror fans and into the physical and psychological effects at sort of at a population level of horror and recreational fear.
One of the things that really struck me was what Matthias said about the lack of seriousness that these kinds of entertainments have been treated with over the years.
Almost like they've had a very negative association when he talked about, since Victorian times, we've said these things are sort of corrupting and should be regarded as bad.
He really made me think it's good to consider this and embrace it and think about it as... not just potentially useful in our own lives, but also as a serious area of research that we have a huge amount to learn from.
Play with your demons, practice with your real-life demons by engaging with horror.
The nuance here that I thought Mark and Matthias were incredibly clear about, but is easily lost, is that saying that horror is good for you does not mean you should impose that on other people.
The point about it is when people are engaging with this stuff in a way that they are in control, they can turn up the dial or turn down the dial.
And when they are in control of their own journey through it, that's where the benefit lies.
Matthias used the phrase sweet fear and that sort of lovely, delicious kind of fear.
The difference between that and real fear is the control, is that you are exploring it deliberately yourself, that you are able to turn the volume down, turn away, turn the telly off, whatever the thing might be, exit the house of horrors.
Well, Mark and Matthias kindly lurked around in the shadows on the line for Doctor's Notes.
And in that episode, we are going to delve into how they met and how they got interested in the whole area of recreational fear.
And we also delve deeper into the different types of horror fans and into the physical and psychological effects at sort of at a population level of horror and recreational fear.
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